{"id":51150,"date":"2019-08-12T19:00:30","date_gmt":"2019-08-12T13:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogadmin.forumias.com\/?p=51150"},"modified":"2019-08-12T16:34:24","modified_gmt":"2019-08-12T11:04:24","slug":"7-pm-rethinking-water-governance-strategies-12th-august-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/7-pm-rethinking-water-governance-strategies-12th-august-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"7 PM | Rethinking water governance strategies| 12th August, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Context:<\/strong> ground\nwater crisis and measure to improve water governance<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>India\nis facing an unprecedented and worsening water crisis. The rivers are getting\nmore polluted, their catchments, water-holding and water-harvesting mechanisms\nare deteriorating, and groundwater levels are depleting at an alarming rate. <\/li><li>A\nlarge part of western and southern India is facing a drought at present. Some\nof these areas, for example, Kerala and the Cauvery basin in Karnataka and\nTamil Nadu, are the areas that faced floods recently<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Challenges\nin Water governance:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Information:<\/strong> The lack of credible\n\u201cwater information,\u201d that is, information about water storage, groundwater,\nwater flows and, in some cases, even rainfall and snowfall levels. Access to accurate\nwater information could help one understand the risks and urgency of the situation\nand steer towards informed decisions<\/li><li><strong>Multiple\ninstitutions:<\/strong>\nCentral Water Commission (CWC), Central Ground Water Board, Central Ground\nWater Authority, State Pollution Control Boards and Central Pollution Control\nBoard, among others. <\/li><li>These\ninstitutes may have a slightly different evolution trajectory, but they show a\ntypical top-down, bureaucratic, unaccountable, non-transparent and\nnon-participatory mindset.<\/li><li><strong>Unsustainable\nextraction:<\/strong>\nMore recent research has reinforced that North India is most affected, and is\nguzzling down groundwater at a rate 70% faster than estimated earlier (Economic\nTimes 2019), but western and southern India are not far behind. <\/li><li>Groundwater\nis, has been, and is going to remain India\u2019s lifeline for a long time to come.\nBut, neither national policy nor national or state water resource\nestablishments acknowledge this reality.<\/li><li><strong>Water\ninfrastructure: <\/strong>The\nwater infrastructure continues to perform far below its optimum, as India is\nnot allocating even a fraction of the required annual maintenance budget of $4\nbillion that it needs. It faces grave dam safety issues, as was also evident in\nthe case of Kerala floods in August 2018.<\/li><li><strong>Soil moisture:<\/strong> Soil moisture\nrepresents another major challenge. For the farmers facing increasingly irregular\nrains with changing climate, the increased capacity of soil to hold moisture is\nhugely useful, as also is the local water storage and sustained or enhanced\ngroundwater levels.<\/li><li>The\ncapacity of the soil to store water increases when there is more carbon in it,\nand this can be achieved with the use of greater organic inputs. More carbon in\nthe soil is also great news for mitigating the emissions-inducing climate\nchange. But, serious schemes are needed for achieving this.<\/li><li><strong>Water footprint:<\/strong> As the urban water\nfootprint is going up by leaps and bounds in multiple ways, there is a need for\na national urban water policy to guide the urban water sector. <\/li><li>Be\nit Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Guwahati, Bhopal, Ahmadabad,\nalmost every city is water stressed and yet does not have a concrete plan to\nfollow up on the basic steps. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Measures to improve water governance: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>River\nBasin Organizations (RBOs) with institutional authority for keeping the river\nbasin and groundwater aquifers in good condition and productivity need to be\nestablished. They can be responsible for allocation of river flows and ground\nwater to competing needs and demands in the basin<\/li><li>Various\nstates in the basin will have the authority of executing water use within such\nan allocation. This will help in a gradual and ecologically-continuous\ndistribution of authority from the national level to the RBOs to the basin\nstates, and further down to the towns and villages<\/li><li>Effective\nfunctioning of RBOs will depend on the availability of recent knowledge and\nquantitative scientific data on the movement of water along all the links\nwithin the hydrological cycle, for the respective basins. <\/li><li>The\nnew institutional structures need to be in close touch with new\ninterdisciplinary knowledge in water science and policy. For this, institutions\nof water science and policy research need to pay attention to the\nmuch-neglected social, political, economic and ecological dimensions and the\nschools of water engineering need to be encouraged to be at the forefront\nthrough coordinated and sustained research programmes. <\/li><li>The\ninstitutions should also work to build wider professional linkages with various\nparts of the Ministry of Water Resources and the RBOs<\/li><li>With\nlimited availability of water, water security will depend heavily on\ntechnological innovations aimed at better efficiency of water use and better\nde-pollution from waste water. <\/li><li>Thus,\nwater-based technologies should have higher support and visibility in the new\nstructure. At the same time, public information and participation in related\nresearch and dissemination also needs to be ensured<\/li><li>Maintaining\nwater security requires the support of a comprehensive legal structure. The\nurgency of the situation with respect to water needs fundamental changes in the\nproperty rights and responsibilities of the citizens supported by an effective\nbut participatory regulatory institutions<\/li><li>Cities\nneed to stop the destruction of local water bodies and local tree cover, treat\nits sewage properly, harvest rainwater, and stop straightening and concretizing\nthe rivers and encroaching on their floodplain.<\/li><li>The\nCentre has to work with States towards an institutional change for the\nnecessary course-shift. The Finance Minister, in her budget, repeatedly stated\nthat the government will work with States to address India\u2019s national water\nsecurity challenges.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Way\nforward: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The\nprimary need is to address the democratic deficit in water governance. The first\nstep in tackling this would be the recognition of this reality as a problem.\nThe water governance ought to be made transparent, accountable and\nparticipatory in every sub-sector, including management of rivers, groundwater,\nfloods, and biodiversity, among others. <\/li><li>There\nis no doubt that the current government has failed to perform in almost every aspect\nof the water sector. It has been largely a story of missed opportunities.\nHowever, continuing to miss these opportunities will be disastrous for India.\nSo government should develop a proper framework for future growth of the nation\nwithout water crisis.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Source:<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/op-ed\/rethinking-water-governance-strategies\/article28984738.ece\">https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/op-ed\/rethinking-water-governance-strategies\/article28984738.ece<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Context: ground water crisis and measure to improve water governance India is facing an unprecedented and worsening water crisis. The rivers are getting more polluted, their catchments, water-holding and water-harvesting mechanisms are deteriorating, and groundwater levels are depleting at an alarming rate. A large part of western and southern India is facing a drought at&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/7-pm-rethinking-water-governance-strategies-12th-august-2019\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">7 PM | Rethinking water governance strategies| 12th August, 2019<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7-pm","category-public","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":98,"cached_at":""},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51150\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}